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Archive | December, 2011

Can you change peoples behavior by making different behaviors more fun? We think so, and so does The Fun Theory. In the video below, they attempted to get more people to choose stairs over an escalator. With a simple transformation, the stairs turned into piano keys, and increased the number of people choosing to use them by 66%. Just like The Fun Theory, we believe that making things more enjoyable can be simple and very effective in motivating certain behaviors.

So, what things can you make more fun?

Posted in: Blog, Gamification, Gaming

One of the ways that we know we have stellar team members, is their commitment to the tech community here in Seattle. Two of our developers, Adam Loving and Brian Immel, recently participated in the King 5 Hackathon which partnered with Amazon and Adobe to host the competition. Brian’s girlfriend, Amanda Vilbrandt also participated in the event for the first time. Hackathons are typically weekend long events that bring together volunteers to build web programs and applications in a friendly competitive environment. They are often hosted by companies and organizations to solve tech-related problems or brain storm innovative ideas.

We are really proud to have these two working with us, and want to congratulate Adam Loving and the rest of team Dimensions on their win.

Posted in: Blog, Development, Startups, Technology

We hope everyone had a great weekend and holiday! With the holidays mostly behind us, and the new year looming, we are happy to see lots of news about gamification. If you have been too busy drinking eggnog (before it disappears for the year!), here is some gamification news from last week that you may have missed.

Prediction 2012: The Year Games Save the World Gamasutra 12/22/2011 With the end of 2011 upon us, it seems like everyone is weighing in on what the ‘it’ thing will be for 2012. Gamasutra presents its argument for gamification. With 2011 being the year of games, social media and the cloud, it seems only logical that the culmination of those three trends, gamification, will be at the forefront of 2012. Games have taken over nearly everything that we consider fun, and it seems game mechanics are poised to take over nearly everything else.

Is Gamification Right for Your Business? 7 Things to Consider Mashable 12/25/2011 Gamification has been getting a lot of buzz lately, but that doesn’t mean that it is the right solution for every company. Mashable did a great job with this list of 7 things to consider before gamifying. The overall message? Consider and evaluate users, goals and objectives before implementing gamification.

Top 10 Stories in Education in 2011 Huffington Post 12/22/2011 Technology and Education have always been intertwined. As technology grows and changes, the ways it impacts learning and education also change. In this list, the top 10 stories in technology that have affected education, gamification makes number 9. Gamification is a great way to add fun and interactive principles to education, with “vendors, teachers, students, and parents drooling over the possibilities.”

FixYa becomes the first Q&A site to gamify its experience 7thSpace 12/26/2011 FixYa 3.0 has added gamification to its site in an attempt to engage FixYa experts with the rest of the community. Varying expert levels integrate with escalated question flow, which allows questions to be raised to higher levels of experts if they have not been answered. Additionally, the experts will receive points and increase levels, by providing accurate answers to user questions.

Posted in: Blog, Gamification

‘Twas pre-funk holidays at 5 Eleven Boren Ave North,
Not a creature was stirring, except the BigDoor employees, of course.
Their stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
knowing a billion API calls would soon be there.

The Ops team was nestled all snug in their beds,
while visions of stable Sharded environments danced through their heads.
Jeff and the Preacher in their kerchiefs; the Dial Tone and Doctor in their caps,
in separate beds of course, settled their brains for a well-deserved nap.

When on Boren Ave arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my 3 X 4 desk to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
tore open the shutters and threw up the sun-shading sash.

SLU was lit up with Paul Allen’s lights;
AMZN was glowing with the new Kindle so bright.
When what to my wondering eyes should arise,
but a blacked out Range Rover, with eight bro-grammers and their bloodshot eyes;
Oh my!

With a little driver, lively and quick with wit;
I knew in a moment it must be Keith or Roy Schmidt.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
they whistled, and shouted, they called them by name!

“Now Bryan! Now, Brian! Now Brian and you too Brian!
On, Adam! On, Adam! On Conor and Jacobsen!”

“Now Gerry! Now, Carrie! Now, BImmel and Oldfield!
On, Estes! On, Dias! Watson and Speidel!”

“To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall!
Its Gamification folks, and BigDoor takes all!”

As P zero’s before the wild hurricane fly,
when these bugs turn up, they curse, they are not shy.
So up to the white board the coursers they flew,
they rally the Sprint and yes the monk, Sung Kim too!

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof,
the prancing and pawing of each little boot.
These devs they were hip, these devs were bad,
these devs had “skillz” that could be only “mad.”

He was dressed all Metro, from his head to his foot;
His clothes were well fitted and ripped where they should.
A bundle of technology he flung on his back;
He was Big Pimpin,’ just opening his pack.

His eyes-how they twinkled! His dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His little mouth drawn cuz he knew he was killin’ it.
What more could he ask for, yes, he was billin’ it.

The deal-signing-pen tucked behind his ear;
He looked at the cookies and milk and exclaimed: “WTF, no Beer?”
He had the Droid, and the iPad 2,
but he was still on a PC, how does he do?

He was shorter than short, a self-deprecating elf,
I dared not laugh when I saw him, in spite of myself!
A wink of his eye and a scratch of his head,
I knew I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work;
He filled all the stockings; he says he is, but he’s not that big of a jerk.
And laying his finger on the side of his nose,
He pinched himself in his own disbelief, then up the chimney he rose!

He sprang to his sleigh, to the team gave a whistle,
and away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,

“Happy Buddha to all, and to all a good night!”

 A very Happy Holidays to you and yours!
-Team BigDoor
(Special thanks to our own HR Nasty for the holiday poetry!)

Posted in: Blog, Gamification, Holiday

Happy Monday! With the holidays around the corner, we know it’s hard to keep up with the news. In case you missed some, here is this week’s gamification news you might enjoy.

Gamification: more than fun and games, it’s about engagement Gigaom 12/8/2011 Gabe Zichermann, gamification expert looks to dispel rumors that gamification is just turning everything into Angry Birds. Zichermann says that, “gamification, or the use of key game concepts to engage users and solve problems, can be a powerful way to create happiness and innovation and spur on results and education among its workforce”.

The Gamification of Holiday Shopping MBA Online 12/16/2011 How do you make holiday shopping more enjoyable? Gamify it. Smart phone technology means that retailers have even more ways to engage shoppers in and out of the store. Retailers are now encouraging users to check-in, shop at certain times and scan QR codes to reap in store rewards. Shopkick, one of the best examples of this, allows users to earn ‘kicks’ for going into participating stores in return for real world rewards.

Gamification for smart alecs Technology Spectator 12/16/2011 Gamification is often described as adding game mechanics to nongame applications, but Craig Roth thinks of gamification as something more subtle: a high quality user experience. With expertise in game design and corporate IT, Roth notes the differences between designing when users are paying to play and when they are not. A high quality experience is necessary in order to keep users playing and coming back for more on their own.

Deloitte Picks top 10 tech trends for 2012 ZDNet 12/16/2011 Deloitte has released its top ten tech trends for 2012 and unsurprisingly gamification is listed. Most trends listed relate to social, cloud and mobile services. All of these were popular in 2011, but Deloitte predicts that we will see even deeper integration than in previous years.

Why Did We Look the Other Way on Competition, Gamification? Forbes 12/14/2011 Despite the ever growing use of the internet, loyalty scores of individual websites remain statistically very low. One solution for this is gamification, which has seen a steady rise in popularity since 2007. We were pleased to provide the infographic that was used in this piece demonstrating the history and popularity of gamification.

Posted in: Blog, Gamification

McKinsey Quarterly recently published a survey, “A rising role for IT: McKinsey Global Survey results,” that examines IT spend among big companies and their adoption of new technology platforms that help support innovation. The survey breaks out 10 areas in which businesses are increasing their investments. You can read more here but there are a few from the list that can be accomplished through incorporating gamification, including: customer engagement; social Internet technologies; existing online social platforms to increase customer engagement, branding or marketing; and engaging customers with apps leveraging mobile-specific capabilities.

Posted in: Blog, Gamification, Gamification Tips, Success, Technology

We love supporting local Seattle companies. We love supporting local companies even more when they make tasty, all natural, addicting snacks like Halfpops. We were lucky enough to get our hands on a couple of boxes of these, and they are quickly becoming a favorite fuel around here. These little partially air-popped popcorn kernels are great brain food, plus we get to say things like “partially air-popped popcorn” over and over.

Posted in: Blog

Over the past year we have watched gamification grow in popularity. With each company that implements gamification, the term seems to gain ground in becoming recognized as a successful solution to engagement and loyalty problems online. Gamification was even short listed for word of the year in Oxford’s Dictionary 2011. We decided to recognize the growing popularity and success of gamification and its implementations in this infographic below (because let’s face it, everything is better as an infographic).You can read more about it’s success on Forbes or ReadWrite Enterprise. A HUGE thanks to Matt Shobe and Chad Jacobson for their work on this!

 

 

 

Posted in: BigDoor news, Blog, Gamification

Happy Monday from all of us at BigDoor! Here is some gamification news you may have missed from last week.

Intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation e27 12/5/2011 Rewards and motivations are key in understanding and designing gamification. While we often talk about these elements in regards to gamification, there is also quite a bit of confusion about how they influence the user. Natalie Marinho defines intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, which is helpful in providing an across the board language for discussing gamification. “Understanding users, their current behaviour and the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations behind those actions is the best starting point to designing a gamified experience.”

The Gamification Implementation Chart is born! Ozma 10/28/2011 This is a bit older than last week, but we think it’s worth sharing. Ozma has put together a great visualization they call the ‘gamification implementation chart’. The chart provides a way of organizing thoughts and ideas forplanning gamification solutions. They even offer a downloadable version for those that want to use it themselves.

B2B Gamification: Bold strategy in conservative industry increased website visits 108.5% MarketingSherpa  12/7/2011 This is a great look at a B2B marketing solution for a website in the finance sector. Sharedserviceslink.com launched a site facelift and gamification solution that proved successful even in a conservative sector. The article provides an in depth look at what they did, how it worked and the results of the campaign. Impressively, over the first month of the campaign, website visits increased by 108.5%, with a 34% increase in the membership database.

With Your Gamification Strategy, Don’t Roll the Dice Business 2 Community 12/8/2011 While gamification has huge potential to be a great loyalty driver for your website, we stress frequently that gamification is not a ‘slap badges on everything’ solution. Razor Suleman has a great list of do’s and don’ts for applying gamification.

The play’s the thing  Economist 12/10/2011 How can games help us to solve real world training issues? The economist details how the military has applied virtual reality games to training situations to provide soldiers training solutions at low cost and risk. Among games used, “America’s Army”, “Virtual Battle Space 2” and “Arma 2”. These games allow warfare simulation that is simply not possible in everyday training, If a commander wants his troops to practice infantry combat in the fog, he does not have to wait for the weather to oblige; he can conjure it up on his computer.”

Posted in: Blog, Gamification, Gaming

We are very excited to announce that the BigDoor family has grown by two. This week, we welcome Bill Dias and Gerry Narvaja to the team. Both Bill and Gerry will be working with the internal team, headed by Jeff Malek BigDoor’s Co-Founder and CTO.

Gerry Narvaja comes to us with decades of experience in the IT industry. He will be working as a MySQL DBA here at Bigdoor. He has a degree in electronic engineering and an MBA with a management info systems focus. He has worked extensively with databases and has focused on MySQL for the past decade, making his expertise invaluable to our team. He was at MySQL AB early on and left just after the Sun acquisition earlier this year. Gerry calls himself a certifiable geek with a passion for photography, computer strategy games and computer hacking when he is not at work. He also co-hosts the OurSQL podcast with MYSQL community leader and podcast creator Sheeri Cabral. When asked about his thoughts on BigDoor after a week on the team he said, “It’s all about the intensity and the fun of a startup in a new industry!”

Bill Dias is our new Systems Architect. Bill comes to us with an accounting degree with management info systems focus. He is originally from southern California. He has years of experience in the IT industry in support, operations and development. Bill previously worked at Zango, Keith Smith and Jeff Malek’s previous company and they are both excited to have him on the team again. Bill has prior startup experience as well, which makes him a great addition to our ever growing team.

Posted in: BigDoor news, Blog, Development